Adventure (noun) - A perilous undertaking
by hotdogfish
Summary: Follow Gracie as she challenges the Hoenn Gyms without the aid of prophecies, Epic Questlines, legendary and/or shiny pokemon, and all that other stuff regular trainers have to do without. Instead, she has to make do with blisters, sunburn, and embarrassing brothers turning up when she least expects them. OFT.
1. Introduction

The last two weeks had been an exercise in torture. It was not her tenth birthday, that had been a couple weeks ago, and she didn't need to get her pokemon license, because she'd already gotten it. Her permanent, plastic card had even arrived in the mail a few days ago, and she'd gleefully set her temporary one on fire. Identity protection and all that, along with a slight hint of pyromania.

She had all of her gear already, most of it had been birthday presents, and it had been packed for the last three days. She couldn't even justify pulling it all out and repacking to make sure everything was there, not for the sixth or seventh time.

All she was waiting on was for was for her brother, Paul, to show up with her starter. Mark, her other brother, had been had been home ever since her birthday, and her dad and his girlfriend were even putting off their drive home to Lilycove City to see her off.

Her family had a long standing tradition of the father catching the oldest child's first pokemon, then the oldest would get the next youngest sibling's starter, and so on down the line. Well, technically the father would get his oldest _son_ 's pokemon, then he would get his _brother_ 's pokemon and so on. Any daughters had to stay home and do whatever household-y things girls did a hundred years ago. Gracie would be the first to admit she wasn't interested in social history, but she knew things were a lot better for girls than they used to be.

Unfortunately, her family wasn't the most organized in the world, and while their dad got Mark's pokemon on time, Mark then showed up for Paul's tenth birthday, forgot it was actually his tenth, then left for a week to catch a starter and come back.

Apparently it was going to be continued, because if Paul as doing the same to her, then she was certainly doing it to Zoey next year.

Two weeks...he'd better be getting her something good...

Gracie finally rolled out of bed and got dressed in a long skirt and t-shirt, no longer excited enough to wear hiking clothes every day. When he got back, she could just get changed; assuming he wasn't lying in a ditch somewhere, or forgot. Jeeze, she would be mad if, after all this time, he'd forgotten to come back.

She padded down the stairs, not wanting to wake mum up, and went into the kitchen. Mark was already there, dressed and wide awake, despite the early hour. Well, it was his own fault for being a flying pokemon trainer.

"Mark, make Paul get back." She whined before flopping down on a stool at the breakfast bar.

He laughed at her before turning to the fridge.

"How about I make you an omelette instead?" He offered, getting a grunt in reply. "Sausage? Cheese? Tuna? What do you want?"

"Fish and chives." She finally replied "With ketchup."

Mark rolled his eyes at her odd choice before starting cracking eggs into a bowl.

"Oh, let me know if you see anything purple floating off into the distance, will ya? Rolf's gone for a wander again." Mark said a minute later, as he slid a plate full of omelette in front of her.

Rolf was his drifblim. He got bored quickly.

"How do you manage to go anywhere? This is the fourth time since you got back."

Mark shrugged.

"He doesn't do it when we're actually going somewhere."

Gracie just shook her head before digging into her steaming hot breakfast.

After eating, Gracie sat on the doorstep, considering what to do for the day. The last few days she'd been at school, but yesterday had been the last day and now it was the summer holidays. She felt at a loss and it was all Paul's fault. She could have been at the gym in Rustboro City, or at least lost in Petalburg Forest, but nooooo, she was stuck at home, waiting for him to turn up.

She went back inside to find another book to reread.

It was mid-afternoon before Anthony, Mark's swellow, flew back to the house, screeching up a storm. It took Mark a few tried to understand what he was saying, but eventually declared that Anthony had seen Paul coming back into town, and should be there in twenty minutes or so.

Gracie rushed upstairs to get changed, grab her pack and, after stuffing her book inside, carried it downstairs.

"Gracie, are you sure you want to set off now?" Her mum asked once she saw the backpack. "It would make more sense to wait until the morning."

"Yeah!" She replied, "I know I won't get to Petalburg tonight, but I still want to get going. I've been waiting long enough already."

Her mum looked like she was going to object again, but stopped when Mark put a hand on her shoulder.

"I'll let dad know that it's today." He said, before heading out the front door.

She scowled when he mentioned her ex-husband, but smoothed her face in order to fuss over her oldest daughter.

Fortunately, Gracie noticed the look on her face in time, and ran off to find Zoey to let her know, too.

"Paul's coming back!" She yelled into her little sister's room, before obnoxiously slamming the door shut and running up to the attic.

It was mostly used for storage, but at some point it must have been an actual room, because there was a large bay window at one end. As their house was at the end of the street, that window always had the best view.

She had barely gotten comfortable on the lounge chair, which had been placed by the window years ago to make spying on passerbys more comfortable, before Zoey burst into the attic, sprung over the back of the couch, and flopped down on top of her.

"I can't see, Zo." Gracie mumbled, her face smooshed between Zoey's back and the chair.

"That's okay, I'm watching for you. Besides, you're gonna be leaving! I won't be able to sit on you for ages."

"Yeah, there's always an extra bonus to leaving that you never think of." Gracie said, while pushing her off and onto the floor.

Zoey didn't even bother getting mad; it was a scene they'd played out many times before.

"When are you gonna come back and visit?" She asked

"Probably after the Petalburg Gym." Gracie replied

"What about after Mauville?" Zoe asked after mentally picturing the Hoenn Gym Circuit, "We're only one route over."

"I'll see," she hedged, "Mauville is only the third gym after all."

"But it's just gonna be me and mum, and you remember how she was after Paul left, and that's when there was still two of us!"

"You'll be fine. Look, it's the summer now, right? So just go see your friends every day."

"But what if they're busy?"

"Then just pretend that you're seeing your friends."

"And actually do what?"

"I dunno, Zoey, go to the library or something." Gracie finally snapped, stopping the conversation until they spotted Paul riding his tauros, Minos.

"Paul, dude, you're not that lazy..." Zoey muttered in disbelief.

"Maybe he's injured." Gracie suggested. "Or both, I guess."

Gracie climbed out of the chair, barely avoiding standing on her sister, before dashing back out the attic, down the stairs, and out the front door. She could have stopped and waited in the garden, but she could have waited inside too. Instead, she hopped over the low wall and ran down the road to greet her older brother, or at least find out what pokemon he had gotten her.

"Gracie!" Paul exclaimed once he saw her

"Paul!...You're leg's bleeding...gross."

Paul laughed, before pulling her up to sit behind him.

He did look rather scruffy. His clothes were dirtier than normal, his hair was an oily mess, he had blood stains all down one leg, and quite frankly, he smelled as though he hadn't showered since he left. However, none of that stopped her from hitching a ride back.

"My leg's not bleeding." He informed her. "It _was_ bleeding, as you can see, but I went to the hospital and they fixed it up."

"Oh. What did you do?"

"I wasn't paying attention and stood in a zigzagoon burrow." He muttered

Gracie snickered at him until they got back home.

"So, wouldn't that normally give you a broken bone, not a load of blood?" She eventually asked

"It did, then the bone went through the skin, and hence the blood."

"Do you have a scar? Can I see?!"

"I still have a cast on, so you can see it when it comes off."

"Shouldn't you be keeping it elevated then, or something?"

"Gracie, have you ever tried riding on a pokemon's back while keeping one leg constantly elevated?" He asked, knowing full well that she hadn't. "It sucks. Also, don't tell the doctor."

"Don't tell the doctor what?" Zoey asked from the doorway

"Just that I've been ignoring his instructions."

"Sure..." She replied, before moving out the way to let them in.

Gracie hopped down off Minos' back, but Paul just leant forward to fit under the doorway and, instead of trying to climb down, rolled onto the couch in the living room.

"So, what happened?" Zoey asked once they were all settled and Minos was back in his pokeball.

Paul repeated the story, adding in that he'd done it barely a few days into his trip and, with already being delayed, figured he might as well be even more delayed and go a bit further to get something really good.

"So you've been riding him for the last eight days?" Zoey asked

"Ye-"

"So, what did you get me?" Gracie interrupted

Zoey snorted in amusement and left them to go to the kitchen.

"You'll find out when everyone's here. Where is everyone, by the way?" Paul replied

"Mark went to get dad, and I dunno where mum is. We've been hiding in the attic since Mark left."

"Has mum been sobbing and crying again about another one of us leaving?" Paul asked

"I. Don't. Know." Gracie slowly replied, as though speaking to a small child. "We've. Been-"

"In the attic, yeah, I got it."

"So, what did you get her?" Zoey asked, carefully balancing three cups of juice in her arms as she walked in.

"He won't tell me." Gracie replied

The front door opened, and the quiet talk in the living room was drowned out by a loud argument, held by everyone outside. Their mum was arguing with their dad, his girlfriend was egging him on, and Mark was trying to calm everyone down.

"Noooooo." Gracie moaned, going to the window to see if she could still see them outside, "Why did he have to bring Leanne with him? She always makes everything worse."

While she was distracted, Paul mouthed to Zoey what pokemon he'd gotten her and she grinned in excitement.

"You knew she was here." Paul reminded her.

"I knew she was in town, yes, but he didn't need to bring her "here" here." She clarified.

The argument quickly moved into the living room, where they could insult each other in much more comfort than outside.

Paul tried to interrupt them, but was ignored, as were Gracie and Zoey. Eventually, he gave up and tossed Gracie a pokeball. Wide eyed, she crept around the adults and sat on the floor next to him, quickly joined by Zoey and Mark, who had given up on trying to calm everyone down.

"Happy birthday Gracie, have a starter. Don't let him out in here, he's still a bit shy around people. He'll be good for you, though. He can find food and has a pretty good sense of direction, but don't ask him to find water." Paul said, loud enough for the other three to hear him.

"What did you get?" Mark asked.

"A sandshrew, from the desert north of Mauville City. I didn't register him, so you don't have to explain the situation at the pokmon centre, just register him as normal."

"How come he can't find water if he's from a desert?" Zoey asked

"A lot of desert pokemon get all their water from their food." Mark explained, "Sandshrew are no different, though they also lick condensation off their skin and rocks and stuff."

"So, is this is my big send-off?" Gracie asked.

"Yeah, sorry about that." Mark said, "Mum showed up as we were coming back and the next minute, they were all yelling. Hah, just think how Zoey's tenth birthday is going to go next year."

All four looked rather glum at that.

Mark's birthday, the oldest, had been perfectly fine. Their parents had still been married, and Mark had set off leaving perfectly happy people behind him. In the two years between Mark's tenth and Paul's tenth, they had gotten divorced and he had been banned from showing up. He did anyway, and the entire party and send-off a few week later had been exceedingly awkward. The way things were going, next year Leanne would be have a wailing baby with her, or he would be in jail, or a gang. Or a dentist. _Eugh!_

"I guess I'm off to the pokemon centre, then." Gracie finally said, glad that she was finally going to be away from all the drama.

"I'm coming too!" Zoey pronounced, "I want to see your sandshrew."

"What about you two?" She asked her brothers.

She knew that her parents needed to be calmed down and told that she had left, and that Paul should probably rest his leg, but she also really wanted them to be there.

They all looked at each other before Mark replied.

"We'll stay here and stop them from trying to embarrass you in public. It just means we'll have to drop in on you at some point to see how you're doing." He said with a grin.

Gracie grinned back, happier that she would be seeing them later, even though she knew that they would probably have done it anyway.

"C'mon Zoey."

The two snuck out of the room, then out the house, closing the door behind them as quietly as possible. They took the long way to the pokemon centre to avoid having to walk right in front of the living room window and risk being seen. Once they were a couple streets away, Gracie let out her new sandshrew.

He materialized about a foot off the ground, but twisted around to land neatly on all fours. He arched his back, making it look even rounder, looked around, noticed the two girls standing over him, then quickly curled up into a tight ball.

"Shut up, Zoey." Gracie said, not looking away from her sandshrew in awe.

Zoey giggled anyway.


	2. Chapter 1

It took longer than planned, but Gracie finally got out of Oldale Town and started heading east towards Petalburg. Her bag was already digging in to her shoulders, even though she had barely passed the town boundary, and it was a lot warmer than she'd expected, but she knew she would have to get used to it. She did, however, stop and put down her sandshrew to tighten the waist strap a bit more.

Upon touching the grass, he uncurled a bit and poked his head out to have a look around. The presence of trees and grass, and the absence of buildings and loud people, calmed him enough to completely straighten out. The dark-haired, male human he had spent the last week with was gone, replaced with a smaller female, presumably the sister he'd been told about.

Gracie watched as he slowly walked over to her and sniffed her shoes.

"Hiya, I'm Gracie." She said softly to him.

He looked up at the sound of her voice and balanced on his hind legs to try and get a better idea of her scent.

She giggled when he tried climbing her leg and bent down to carefully pick him up. Once she had him, he squealed and curled back into a ball, but once he was held still, he uncurled again and started crawling up her chest. He clambered over over her shoulder and onto her backpack, and finally settled down with his tail flopped over her left shoulder.

Gracie stretched her arm back to offer him her fingers to sniff, which he took great interest in. At first he only sniffed them, but once he smelled the salt on her hands, he started licking it off; his dry, sandpapery tongue almost taking a layer of skin off in the process. She winced when he dug his claws into her arm to get a better grip, but didn't mind too much as this was the first friendly response she'd gotten from him, even though she had been carrying him for almost three hours.

"So we're gonna travel all over the place and meet all sorts of pokemon. Won't that be fun?" She said to the sandshrew, who looked up from his ministrations to her fingers and flicked an ear in her direction.

When no further comments seemed to be forthcoming, he dropped down onto his belly, seemingly done with her fingers, but offered no other response.

Gracie sighed and let her hand fall back to her side, it was starting to get sore from being held up.

"I don't know if we're going to do _all_ the gyms, but we can start them anyway, gives us somewhere to go and a bit of direction."

With no fingers to pay attention to, the sandshrew looked at Gracie when she talked, nose and ears twitching the whole time.

"I still need to give you a name, but we can do that as we get moving."

With that, Gracie continued walking.

"So, what do you like to eat?" Gracie asked

"Sa?" The sandshrew replied.

'Looks like this isn't going to be as easy as I thought.' She thought, hoping that she would be able to figure out a way to understand her sandshrew fairly quickly.

"C'mon dude, you can walk." She told him, then picked him up by his tail and put him back down on the ground.

Instead of curling up in a ball and refusing to move, he walked over to the edge of the path and started sniffing the grass. When Gracie continued walking down the path, slowly at first to make sure he would follow her, he even left his investigation behind in favour of not being left behind by his trainer.

Much faster than the pair would have preferred, the path continued onwards into the trees.

This close to Oldale Town, the trees were still fairly young and small, but that didn't stop them from blocking out the sunshine. It would have been nice if that meant it would be cooler underneath, but as they stopped the breeze as well, it just made it hot and muggy.

The trees were not particularly close together, and the gaps between them were filled with a myriad of shrubs and bushes, most of which were probably edible in a pinch, but Gracie knew that somewhere later on there was a patch of oran bushes. She couldn't always find them, but she hoped that she would this time, now that she was on her actual pokemon journey and might need them for her sandshrew.

Soon, the path brightened as the trees on their right were replaced by a small lake. It was the biggest source of water between Oldale and Petalburg, but it was so close to Oldale that few people bothered with it. Gracie was certainly carrying enough water to last her until that evening, when she would camp by a small stream. It usually dried up later in the summer, but was still more than enough for her uses.

The main attraction from the lake was that it was usually a good place to find lotad and the occasional surskit.

Despite the fact the Gracie had only had a pokemon of her own for a couple hours, said pokemon didn't even have a name yet, and she didn't even know for sure what attacks he had, she still spent the entirety of the time they spent walking past the lake looking for the duel-type water pokemon. She may not have the ability to train one pokemon, nevermind two, but lotad and surskit both had the advantage that they were water type, but were not constrained to being in water. Though she did see several lily pads that were likely lotad, and one surskit skimming across the top of the water, they were all so far out that she couldn't draw one into a battle.

After spending an hour walking past the lake, and not a single pokemon coming in range, Gracie contented herself with the idea that it was a good thing no pokemon came close; her sandshrew was ground type and would therefore be weak against water, grass, and bug types. She thoroughly squashed down the idea that he would likely be fine anyway; he wasn't a baby, like many starter pokemon, and after travelling with her older brother for about a week, he probably knew more about battling than she did.

Once they passed back into the trees, Gracie meandered off the actual path and into the bushes. She had walked this route many times before with family, so she knew where she was going. Her sandshrew, however, did not appreciate trying to navigate through all the plants, and climbed up her leg, leaving a sizeable rip in Gracie's shorts, before hauling himself back on top of her backpack.

"Hey, I was hoping to go more than one day before tearing the clothes, you know." Gracie scolded.

He didn't seem to notice her tone of voice, or overly care, and quickly scanned the area from his new viewpoint before laying down to enjoy the free ride. Gracie sighed, hoping it wouldn't become a habit; she could make him walk, but she didn't want to destroy what little relationship they had so far. Eh, she would let him ride this time, it's not like he wouldn't get tons exercise when actually battling.

By the time they stopped for the night at the stream she'd been looking for, she still hadn't had any pokemon battles. Most of the trainers were closer to Petalburg or on the actual path, and all the wild pokemon had scampered off at the sound of Gracie pushing through the trees. They'd heard plenty wild pokemon, mostly chattering zigzagoon and the occasional taillow, but they all kept their distance.

Gracie sighed in relief as she unclipped her backpack, forgetting about sandshrew lying on top. He rolled into a ball and dropped to the ground, bouncing a couple times before coming to a stop. She watched him for a couple seconds before deciding that he didn't look like uncurling any time soon and picked him up and put him back down in a small hollow between a couple tree roots. It wouldn't stop him from rolling away if he really wanted to, but it would stop him accidentally rolling into the water.

Emptying her backpack onto the ground, Gracie pulled her camp-stove over to a flat rock, and set it up. She scooped some stream water into her pot and set it to boil while she set up her tent.

Her one man tent was not that complicated to put up, but Gracie had gotten rid of the tent bag before she left home, so the pegs had gotten buried somewhere. She sorted through her pile of belongings and finally found the bag of pegs, somehow inside her rolled up foam mattress. They were not the wimpy pegs that came with the tent, these were more heavy duty pegs that her dad had bought her, and they could punch through small rocks if need be. She'd been told not to bother bringing a mallet and to use a rock instead, but Gracie had borrowed Paul's instead. She planned on giving it back someday. Maybe.

With her upgraded pegs, and stolen mallet, Gracie's tent was erected soon after the pan of water came to a boil. She let it boil a little more to kill any germs in the water, and went to quickly check to make sure sandshrew hadn't wandered off. He hadn't even unrolled himself.

She returned to her pile of stuff and pulled out a packed of instant noodles. The packet said pidgey flavour, but she knew better than to believe it would taste like an actual pidgey. The packet was opened and the contents dumped in the pan, then she put the lid on and turned the burner off.

While the noodles cooked, she unrolled her foam mattress and carefully fit it into the tent, then threw her pillow and sleeping bag on top of it. Her pack and the rest of her stuff were then carelessly dumped inside the tent, next to the door. She would sort out the rest of it in the morning.

She zipped up the flyscreen and went to check the noodles and decided that they looked soft enough. She then went back to her tent, unzipped the screen and rummaged around for her box of utensils. After finding the box and pulling out a fork, the box was closed, the screen was re-zipped and she returned to her dinner. After swearing she would be more efficient next time, she started to eat the noddles straight out of the pot. They tasted nothing like pidgey.

Half way through eating, her sandshrew had decided that her food was more interesting than lying in a ball, and came over to investigate. He was wary of the tent and gave it a large margin when walking around it, then hopped straight onto Gracie's lap once he got close enough. He almost knocked over her dinner, but Gracie managed to steady it before any spilled.

"You aren't getting any," Gracie told him, "Paul said you're able to hunt."

Sandshrew stared at her.

"Look, it's not good for you."

He continued to stare.

"...Fine, you can have the leftover sauce."

Sandshrew would have smiled to himself if he had the right facial muscles; the dark-haired male's chimecho was a genius when it came to begging food. He lay down to wait for her to finish eating.

Once Gracie finished the noodles, she set the pan down on the ground, and sandshrew dropped off her lap to get to it. While she watched him lick up the sauce, she considered that he still needed a name. She knew it was silly, but naming her pokemon was one of the things she least looked forward to, mostly because she knew she sucked at it.

"Did Paul happen to give you a name?" Gracie asked, even though she knew that he hadn't.

Sandshrew looked up when she started talking, but quickly returned to his meal when she didn't do anything interesting.

"I can't name you Paul!" She exclaimed, misinterpreting his reason for looking at her.

Though, it would be funny to name him after her brother; 'Paul, use tackle,' 'Paul, get out of my sleeping bag,' 'Paul, play nice with the other pokemon.' Funny, but weird, and sooo not happening. It didn't help that she had two older brothers, not just one, and they had taken all the cool names for their own pokemon. She was determined to put it off as long as possible. Unfortunately, she was also determined to figure out a name that night.

Once sandshrew had licked the pan clean, Gracie scrubbed it in the stream and filled it back up. She put the pan back on the stove and relit it. Once this lot of water boiled, it would go in her water bottle.

"Lets go ralts hunting!" Gracie decided.

As ralts were so rare, it was a common pastime for children to borrow a pokemon and spend the day looking through the grass for one of them. It was very rare that anyone found one, and it was even rarer still that the finder actually had an empty pokeball on them. Despite the lack of captures, even seeing one doubled their perceived coolness for the rest of the week.

Gracie's chances of finding a ralts were as low as ever, but she had pokeballs now, as well as her pokemon license. So, even though she had never found one before, she filled her pockets with empty pokeballs, potions, and her berry pouch.

She impatiently waited for the water to finish boiling before turning the stove off and covering the pot of water. Now that she wasn't going to cause a forest fire, she picked up her sandshrew and marched into the trees.

An hour later, they returned to camp. There had been no ralts, but they had found an oran bush. Unfortunately, it was still fairly early in the season for berry picking; she found a few ripe berries, but still only managed to half-filled her berry pouch.

Still considering the walk a success, despite the lack of psychic pokemon, Gracie happily crawled into the tent read for an hour or so before going to bed. It was getting dark, so she pulled her torch out of her pile, as well as her book. Looking around the tent, she saw that sandshrew was definitely not inside. She unzipped the door and saw him a couple meters away from the tent, glaring at it.

"It's just a tent, silly. Come on, inside."

He didn't move, nor lessen the intensity of his glare. Gracie just rolled her eyes, got out the tent, picked him up, and carried him in. Once inside she put down in a dip in her sleeping bag before flopping down next to him to continue reading.

Gracie read until her neck hurt, then put her book down and returned to her dilemma of the day.

"You still need a name, don't you?"

She looked up to see sandshrew neck deep in her berry pouch.

"Oi, we need those for battles." She exclaimed, before pulling him out by his tail.

Even hanging upside down, sandshrew didn't seem too upset. He was in fact, quite cheerful, for he had an oran berry in each paw.

"I'm not naming you after a berry." Gracie said, exasperated enough with the whole naming business that she couldn't think of any other reason why he would want the berries.

Gracie sighed and tried to think of a name that sounded like "oran" but was different enough that is wasn't obvious

"Ory? Poran? Roran? What do you think of Roran? That almost sounds like a proper name; kinda like oran and Rory."

She looked at the newly dubbed Roran expectantly.

Roran didn't seem to have any feelings at all on the new name; he tilted his head slightly, before ignoring her and stuffing the berries in his mouth. Gracie moaned to herself; it seemed obvious what he wanted the berries for now. Also, 'Roran' was stuck in her head, so there was no way she could change it.

Gracie tossed her book and torch into the pile of stuff, startling Roran back into a ball, and crawled into her sleeping bag.

"Hey Roran, wanna snuggle?" Gracie asked, the name "Roran" already becoming annoyingly comfortable in her mouth.

He ignored her, but she picked him up anyway and stuffed him down her sleeping bag. It would be warmer in there and he was used to deserts. Also, she would hopefully wake up if he tried to crawl back out to eat the rest of the berries.

A few minutes later, Gracie felt Roran uncurl and start crawling out of the sleeping bag.

"Nuh uh, it's sleeping time." She told him, not even lifting up the edge of the sleeping bag to look at him. Thankfully, he lay back down without much more fuss.

Another minute later, Gracie shifted so that her leg wasn't pressing on top of a rock. Then, she shifted her shoulders, this time to avoid what was probably a root. She rolled slightly to put her hips in a small dip, instead of on the edge of it, and got squeaked at by Roran. Feeling guilty at disturbing him, she stopped moving and tried to ignore the rest of the lumps underneath her. Of course, now that she wasn't moving, the sound of the wind through the trees above, zigzagoon in the bushes, and taillow in the trees seemed much louder. It was incredibly creepy.

Eventually, she managed to drift off to sleep.

The next morning, she woke up with a stiff back, stiff shoulders, stiff legs, and stiff arms. She also found that it had rained overnight, and her pack and half the stuff on top of were soaked because, apparently, she hadn't remembered to push everything off the edge of the tent.

She unzipped the sleeping bag and sat up, knocking Roran over, who had decided to sleep on her belly, on the _outside_ of the sleeping bag.

It was not her best morning in the world.

She pulled on her boots and crawled out of the tent, only to discover that the ground was as wet as her tent. Shivering in the cool morning breeze, she half crawled back into the tent for her jacket, not thinking to avoid touching the wet tent until after her pyjamas were already soaked through.

Deciding to ignore the tent for as long as she could, she went to where she had left her camp stove, and found that she had forgotten to empty the pot into her water bottle before turning in for the night. Well, it should still be safe to drink, the lid had been on all night, after all. But her water bottle was inside the tent.

She really didn't want to get any wetter.

Resigning herself, she went back to the tent and eyed the door flap, whereupon she finally noticed the black tabs for tying the door up. Feeling mareepish, and glad that only Roran was there to see her, she tied up the door as well as the flyscreen, keeping them both well out of the way.

She pulled out her pack, hoping that it would get dryer and not wetter once it was outside, before rummaging for her water bottle. Victorious, she carried it back to the stove, filled it up, twisted the lid on tightly, then carelessly tossed it back on the ground.

Glad that something was finally going right, she looked around for her matches to cook some oatmeal for breakfast, only to find that she had left them next to the stove. Naturally, they were soaked and therefore useless.

She threw her hands up in frustration before calling it quits. She unscrewed the gas bottle from the stove before dumping both parts, and the pot, into her pack. She had granola bars somewhere; she would eat them instead.

She quickly dressed just outside her tent, not wanting to accidentally stand up inside and knock down all the water. Her pyjamas went in her pack, along with her sleeping bag and the rest of her pile of stuff. All that was left was the soaking wet tent.

Copying what she had seen her dad do once when she was eight, she pulled out the pegs keeping down the guy ropes, then yanked on them to flick the water off the tent. After she finished one side, she moved on to the back, deciding to stand to the side, instead of in front of, the panel she was flicking.

Gracie had everything packed up and was ready to leave before she noticed that Roran was gone. Her breath caught in her throat as she started to panic.

She was a pretty pathetic trainer; she'd lost her pokemon already and they hadn't even been together for a full twenty four hours yet! To make it worse, she was in the middle of a route, and still had at least half a day's hike to get to town!

"RORAN!" She hollered, hoping he would come running out from under a bush.

When he failed to materialize, she started looking around for tracks.

There were lots of tracks in the clearing. She had no idea which ones were Roran's.

"PLEASE DON'T MAKE THIS DAY ANY … worse."

To her joy, Roran trotted into the clearing. To her horror, he had a dead taillow dangling from his mouth.


	3. Chapter 2

As if a dead taillow wasn't bad enough, he was getting closer to her with it still in his mouth.

"No, no." She told him, "That's okay, you can have it."

Roran stopped his approach to consider her words, before bounding forward the rest of the way and dropping the taillow at her feet.

"Shrew!" He happily told her.

"I don't know what that means! Look, we can even wait a little longer for you to eat it, 'kay?"

Roran shook his head, which made no sense to him as a way to communicate, but that's what the dark-haired male's grumpig had told him to do.

"I don't want it! It's gross and dead and still has feathers and everything!" She wailed

"Shrew." He told her again, poking her in the leg.

"How about this, I'll put it in my bag, and then you can eat it later. How about that?" She asked.

Without waiting for a reply, she opened her pack and gingerly placed the dead taillow on top of the rest of her stuff. She gave her hands a thorough wipe on her trousers, then closed her pack again and put it on.

"Let's go." She told him, before setting off back into the forest.

Roran quickly set off after her and, upon catching up, tried to climb up her leg. If she could carry his taillow, then she could carry him, right?

"Nuh uh, you're walking today. It'll make you stronger, and my bag's heavy enough as it is." She said while picking him up and putting him back down on the ground.

Roran snorted before obediently following her on his own feet.

"So, we should get to Petalburg by tonight, and then we'll get to sleep indoors!" Gracie interrupted his musings with a squeal of delight.

It was drier when they stopped for lunch. The air was less humid, the dew had long since dried up, and there were a lot less ponds about. However, the lack of ponds didn't stop Gracie from relaxing next to one while eating her, now squished, sandwiches.

She lay back against a tree, eating what had been a fat sub sandwich when she made it, but after being crammed in her pack for a day and a half, it looked more like a crumpled up pancake than anything else.

She vaguely considered taking off her socks and shoes to dip her feet in the cool water, but then they would be wet, and didn't want to dig through her pack again to find a towel. The breeze was nice though, and refreshing.

The major upside of stopping for a lunch break, was that Roran was eating that taillow he brought back that morning. The loud crunches as he chewed through the bones was not the most pleasant sound in the world, but at least it meant it wasn't in her pack any more. Her tent already had a big fat stain on it from the blood.

A sudden movement immediately to her side made her glance over. A lotad had just crawled up out of the pond to sun itself on a rock. She turned back to her sandwich. As much as a duel grass-water type would rock, she was pretty sure she wanted one that was smart enough to not lie down less than ten feet from a strange human and a sandshrew.

Roran apparently wasn't nearly so inhibited. Leaving the gory remains of his meal behind, he meandered over to the lotad, clambering over Gracie's legs in the process.

The lotad didn't seem to care, or even notice Roran's approach, even when he reached it and started flicking the back of its giant lily pad with one of his claws.

Gracie facepalmed, though she wasn't sure whether it was over Roran, or the lotad's lack of response.

Well, she decided, she might as well get him to fight it. She was doing it a favour, really. It should know better than to be so oblivious to its surroundings.

"Roran, use scratch on it." She told him, after standing up.

There was no way she was going to have her first pokemon battle while sitting on her butt.

She thought he was going to ignore her, but after giving the lotad another firm prod and still getting no response, he scratched its leg.

The lotad squealed and tried to jump up, but only managed to fall off its rock and onto its leaf. It waved its stubby legs around to try and flip back over, but it had nothing to get a grip on.

Roran happily scratched it again, this time on its belly, getting not a squeal, but a low growl in response. He immediately jumped back and rolled into a ball to protect himself.

"Roran, it's just a growl!"

He didn't budge from his ball.

"It's a lotad. You can't have a draw with a lotad! All they can do is growl and use astonish! They aren't even strong enough to use absorb around here!" Gracie yelled

Roran uncurled enough to look at her, before re-coiling himself.

"Ugh, you're lucky you haven't rolled into the water." Gracie told him.

Absolutely refusing to have anything other than a win against a fricken lotad, she dug in her pockets for an empty pokeball. A capture was just as good as a win, maybe even better, and hopefully it would become more self-aware as it got stronger.

She maximized the pokeball and threw it at the lotad. It was sucked in, then, as it wobbled around, it rolled into the pond before becoming still with an inaudible 'ding'.

Gracie stood at the edge of the pond, Roran still rolled up at her feet, and stared at the pokeball with her new lotad. It wasn't all that deep where it had stopped rolling, but it was still deep enough that her feet would get wet, and too far out for her to just reach out for it.

"I don't suppose you want to get it?" She asked Roran sarcastically.

He did actually uncurl himself from his ball this time, even if he did take one look at the water before trotting past her to a bush and lying down. Obviously he had no intention of getting wet.

Looking around for inspiration, Gracie grabbed a long stick and tried to push the pokeball back towards her. It wasn't nearly as easy as she thought it would have been, and she almost managed to flick it deeper into the pond, but after a couple minutes, she eventually managed to get the ball close enough that she could pick it up.

She carried it over to Roran while shaking the water off it.

"Look, this is our new teammate." She told him, bending down so that he could sniff the ball.

She left him rolling the ball between his paws as she went back to her pack to grab her few oran berries. Lotad really weren't all that strong, so one or two should fix him up.

She opened her berry pouch and was startled to find it empty.

"Roran! Those berries were for if we needed them, like right now, not for you to have a midnight snack!" She yelled, startling him into rolling up again.

With a sigh, she picked him up as he started rolling past her, back towards the pond.

"You startle easily, don't ya?"

She tucked him under her arm as she went to pick up the lotad's pokeball and shoved it back into her pocket. She had to put him back down when she pulled her pack back on, but carried him away from the pond, if only so that he wouldn't roll back in it.

Once they got back to the path, she put him back down. He slowly uncurled himself, before scampering to the edge of the path to sniff a bush as though nothing had happened.

Gracie set off down the path, relieved when she heard the patter of Roran's feet as he ran to keep up.

He seemed incapable of walking at the same pace as her. He was constantly either behind sniffing something, or running ahead to find something else. He rolled down any hill, no matter how shallow, sometimes zooming around a corner or into the undergrowth. She panicked each time it happened and ran forward to find him, but he was always fine, and somewhat puzzled at her worry.

By the time they arrived at Petalburg City, she had given up on keeping him within eyesight. He always came back, or let her catch up, and, to be honest, her pack was way too heavy for her to be chasing him all over the place.

She was a little more worried about him running off in the city itself. Teams Magma and Aqua had long since been disbanded, but that didn't mean lone pokemon were entirely safe from thieves. Fortunately, he stuck closer to her once they left the trees. Whether it was just from a lack of stuff to smell, or if he was genuinely worried, she wasn't sure, but she appreciated it nonetheless.

The sun was setting once she finally got to the pokemon centre, it was just at the right level to shine in her eyes, but she wasn't about to stop to dig her sunglasses out of her pack when she was this close. She swore that tomorrow, she would put them in one the outer pockets.

The lobby was practically empty when she entered it, and she could smell the food from the cafeteria, wherever they had hidden it. The receptionist was sitting behind the desk, typing away on a computer. Other than her, the only other person was a teenage boy sitting on the floor in the corner, surrounded by a multitude of fire pokemon. She tried not to stare at him as she went to the receptionist's desk. Type speciality trainers weren't all that common these days, excluding bug catchers, of course. He was kinda cute, too.

Gracie jerked her gaze to the desk and pulled out her two pokeballs. She returned Roran and set them both down on the desk, before pulling out her wallet.

"Trainer's card." The receptionist requested, still not looking up from the computer.

"Here." She replied, handing over her card.

The receptionist sighed, not even to pretending to be polite, and ran it through the scanner.

"I'd like my pokemon healed and my lotad registered, and a room." Gracie added.

"Fine. The longest you can stay is seven days, then you have to find somewhere else."

Gracie nodded, mutely, though the receptionist still hadn't looked up from her computer, so she wasn't sure if she'd seen it.

Her licence was thrust back at her, before both her pokeballs were placed on the machine behind the desk. It momentarily lit up, then both her pokeballs were handed back, too.

"You're lotad is male, weighs five pounds, is about six months old, has the Rain Dish ability, and performs photosynthesis." The receptionist rattled off.

"Photo-what?"

"It eats sunlight." She snapped. "You're in room three, down the hallway, on the left. The cafeteria is at the end of the hall."

"Thanks..." She muttered, before grabbing her balls and heading through the door with the 'Trainer Dorms' sign.

Room three was painfully boring. The walls were plain brick covered in whitewash, though from the number of stains and chips in it, it was probably due to be painted again. The floor was cheap linoleum, and the long, fluorescent bulb on the ceiling flickered badly. There were four sets of metal bunk beds, with vinyl-covered, foam mattresses in a multitude of bright colours.

The top and bottom beds of the bunk on the far wall had already been claimed, with a pile of stuff on each bed and a sleepy zigzagoon guarding them both. So, too, had the top bunk by the door, this one with a delcatty watching her over the edge.

She took the top bunk by the lone, rather dirty window. She left her bag on it, and let out her lotad to guard it. She figured he wouldn't go anywhere, not with what was left of the sun shining on the bed. Leaving Roran in her pocket, she left for the cafeteria.

The cafeteria was a lot more crowded than the lobby. It was only about half full of people, though a lot of the extra space was filled with pokemon, many of which she'd never seen before in real life.

In a bit of a daze, she went to the buffet table and grabbed a tray and three plates. One she filled with a generic, carnivorous-pokemon kibble, one with spaghetti bolognaise, and the last with a piece of cake, a biscuit, and a generous dollop of blue ice cream. After grabbing cutlery, she scanned the room for an empty seat and found none that were easily accessible.

She shimmied down the gap between two benches, trying to avoid trainers and pokemon alike, before placing her tray down at a free spot and sitting down. She let Roran back out and gave him his plate of kibble, which he didn't really seem all that interested in. She really hoped that he would eat it because she really didn't want to get into the habit of carrying dead pokemon everywhere.

Deciding that she couldn't do much about it, she dug into her ice cream with gusto before it melted on the rest of her dessert. When it was gone, she decided that her spaghetti wasn't about to suddenly go cold, and ate her cake too.

By the time she left the cafeteria, Roran hadn't eaten a thing, someone had bumped into her and made her spill her drink down her shirt, and her muscles had decided that they hurt.

She limped back to Room 3 with Roran following behind her, looking no worse for wear from their two days of walking. When she opened the door, the bunk with the zigzagoon had two girls sitting on the bottom bed, gossiping with each other. They looked up when she entered the room, but quickly ignored her in favour of their chatter.

She went to her claimed bed, only to groan at her still unpacked bag with the wet tent inside. She stood on the bottom bunk to reach easier, and pulled out the tent, letting it fall on the floor with a loud smack.

"Do you guys mind if I set up my tent for the night? It's soaking wet." She asked the two girls

"Pft," one of them replied, "it'll be fine for a night or two. Just take it out to a route tomorrow and let it dry then." She was then ignored again in favour of their chatter.

It was a good point the girl made, but it was a rude way to put it, and she really wished that she had the guts to reply in kind.

With uncomfortably warm cheeks, she turned back to her bag and started digging out her sleeping bag, pillow, pyjamas, and book. When she'd dug them all out, she pushed her bag next to the wall, grabbed her pyjamas to go change, then realized that her lotad was gone.

"Have either of you guys seen my lotad?!" She yelped to the two girls, interrupting some joke or other.

"It wandered into the bathroom a little while ago and hasn't come out since." The other girl replied, a lot nicer than her friend did.

"Thanks." She replied, before heading into the bathroom to get changed and bring her lotad back.

Her lotad, it seemed, upon discovering that the sun was gone, had searched out a source of water instead, and had somehow climbed the toilet and was now floating in the bowl. Gracie prayed that whoever had used it last had done a _really_ good job of flushing.

"Hey you..." She tried to coo at him, he wasn't in trouble, as such. "Do you wanna get out of there?"

He examined her for a second, then started swimming in tiny little circles. Frankly, Gracie was surprised he was small enough to make circles without bumping into the toilet seat.

"C'mon dude, that's pretty gross." She said, conveniently ignoring that the pond she had found him by likely had way nastier things in it than a little bit of pee.

She got changed and, after he still refused to climb out on his own, gingerly picked him up and dumped him in the sink. She turned the on tap, right on top of him, and scrubbed her hands with the cheap bar of soap the centre provided. Once she deemed herself decontaminated enough, she started giving him a rub down too.

He squirmed when she started rubbing him with the soap, but apparently enjoyed the cold water too much to put up too much of a fight. However, he still managed to splash enough water on her pyjama top that she was going to change it when they were done.

Once he was decontaminated enough that she wouldn't mind him sleeping on the same bed as her, she turned the water off and he immediately started squealing at her. When that didn't work and she started towelling him off, he growled at her. When she continued drying him, he used what must have been astonish. All Gracie knew was that one minute she was trying to dry under his leaf, and the next she was startled enough that she jerked her hand away and bashed it on the counter.

"Stop that, Rolf!" She yelled from habit, before she realized that this was her lotad, not Mark's drifblim.

Well, bummer, it was stuck in her head now. He would certainly be pleased to know that she had named a pokemon after him. Hopefully her lotad wouldn't turn into as big a prankster as the drifblim was.

"Whatever. You're now 'Rolf', okay?" She asked him, scooping him up and carrying him out before he could reply.

She put him on top her her bag, before looking around for Roran to put him up there as well. He was nowhere to be seen, but she did hear something scratching around under the bottom bunk. She bent down to have a look, and found Roran and the girl's zigzagoon eyeballing each other. She rolled her eyes and pulled Roran out of there before they actually started fighting. She dumped him up on her bunk before climbing up herself.

It was still rather early, but she couldn't be bothered to shower, or organize her stuff, or even move her tent from where she'd left it, so she flattened out her sleeping bag, crawled inside it, then started reading. She would only stop once the lights were turned off.

Lights off was a long time coming.

The girl with the delcatty didn't come back for another hour, arms full of freshly dried laundry. She ignored everyone and folded her clothes before climbing onto her own bunk. She spent the rest of the evening grooming her pokemon. First was the delcatty, then that was switched out for a mightyena, then a manectric. If Gracie wasn't impressed with her pokemon before, she certainly was when the manectric was switched for a vaporeon.

The two zigzagoon girls spent the entire time talking, not shutting up for a moment. At some point, they pulled out a magazine and started giggling over some actor.

When they were on their third personality quiz, this one determining what season they represented, the vaporeon flicked the light switch with its long tail, plunging them all into darkness.

Gracie didn't really mind, she'd read over three chapters already, and had enough light by the window to put her book away and lie down without bashing her head on the headboard. Rolf hadn't moved from his spot at the base of the bed, so she left him there, confident that if he wandered during the night, he could only go around the room and into the bathroom.

Roran, however, had curled up on her chest, so she awkwardly picked him up and shoved him down her sleeping bag. She knew she wouldn't be able to sleep with him after he evolved, he'd be too big for that, but he was just so cosy that she couldn't help herself. Chances are, he'd climb out again while she slept, but as long as he didn't try to escape the room or pick a fight with the other pokemon, then she didn't mind.

The two girls, however, were not happy at the lights out, but were not really brave enough to risk the vaporeon's wrath by turning them back on. One clambered up to the top bunk in the darkness, and, after she got herself comfortable, everything was silent for a whole minute or so. Then, the whispering started.

They were too loud for Gracie to just ignore and get to sleep, but were still sufficiently quiet that she felt shy about telling them to shut up.

The whispering got louder and, when they started approaching a normal talking volume, a loud growl interrupted them.

"If you two don't shut it, I'll have Joshua use water pulse on your bunk." The lone girl snarled

"Yeah, but then you'll be the one in trouble!" Retorted the snarkier of the pair

"I'll tell them that your friend's marill did it. I've got five badges to the three between you two. It'll be my word against yours."

"Yeah, but with her in the other bunk," Gracie had a sinking feeling they were talking about her, "that'll be three against one!"

Gracie froze, she really didn't want to get into an argument between a bunch of trainers she'd never met before, and definitely not on her first night ever in a Pokemon Centre!

"Well, it sound's like she's asleep already." The lone girl was starting to sound less annoyed and more malicious with every word.

Fortunately, with that threat in the air, no one else spoke another word, and Gracie eventually managed to get to sleep.


	4. Chapter 3

Gracie woke up bright and early, thanks to whoever forgot to close the cheap blinds. Considering that she was the one sleeping next to them, that probably meant that it was her own fault. She considered rolling over and going back to sleep, but, now that she was awake, she really had to use the bathroom.

She opened her eyes, before jerking back from the bright light and squeezing them closed again. Roran squealed from the sudden movement, and jumped down off the bed to the floor, determined to find somewhere less prone to moving to continue snoozing.

After sitting up to get her face out of the large sunbeam, she tried opening her eyes again. This time, the light wasn't nearly so painful, so she was free to look around the room and reorientate herself.

The two girls sharing a bunk were still asleep, but the girl on the other bunk by the door was already awake, dressed, and half packed. Roran was crawling underneath her bottom bunk, and Rolf had somehow managed to get himself onto the windowsill and was dozing in the morning sun.

Her wall of stuff was still piled next to the wall, so no one had managed to rob her blind during the night, which was good, but she wasn't sure how to get down without making enough noise to wake the other two girls. Deciding that she had to pee too much to care, she climbed down as quietly as she could, before going to the small bathroom with her toiletries bag.

"Morning." She heard the other girl say to her, right as she closed the door behind her.

Woops. Well, hopefully she wouldn't think that she was being ignored and get mad.

After relieving herself and brushing her teeth, she went back to her bed to grab some clean clothes.

The two bottom bunk girls were still asleep, and the girl with the vaporeon gave her a glare before leaving the dorm, dragging her pack behind her.

Gracie dressed and packed up slowly, giving the girl plenty of time to eat and hopefully leave the building, before she left for the cafeteria herself.

Her tent was still wet from being in a pile on the floor overnight, but it would dry quickly enough once she pitched it for the day.

She returned Rolf to his ball, pulled Roran out from where he had been lurking under the bed, hoisted her pack, and nervously left the dorm for the cafeteria. When she got there, the vaporeon girl was thankfully absent. She got herself a plateful of pancakes, bacon, and maple syrup, all of which managed to taste and feel like cardboard, even the syrup.

She offered Roran another bowl of kibble, which he turned his nose up at again and, honestly, she couldn't blame him. If she'd eaten real meat her whole life, and was then offered a bunch of crunchy brown lumps that probably tasted like her cardboard pancakes, she'd turn her nose up too. Well, he could hunt again while they were out.

She returned him to his ball while she ate, not wanting him to get bored and potentially make a mess.

Once she left the pokemon centre for the day, she let him back out. He obediently followed her as she walked east, back to Route 102. She wanted to get some actual training in before she started exploring Route 104 and Petalburg Woods. She wasn't going to actually try getting through the woods until her week of free board ran out at the pokemon centre, and she figured out how to find wild pokemon. Except for wild pokemon swimming around in the ponds and lakes, she had seen astonishingly few during the two days it took to get to Petalburg City.

The route was still a bit dewy when they arrived, so they stuck to the path for a little longer instead of heading straight into the bush. They stopped at the first clearing they came to and Gracie let Rolf out his ball, before pulling out her groundsheet. She dumped everything in her bag on top of it, only pulling her tent out of the pile and pitching it in the sunlight. She then lay the inner tent upside down over a bush so that the bottom could dry.

She wasn't about to repack everything yet else. If she wasn't going to be camping for a while, then she wanted her tent on the bottom of her bag.

It was then, on the beginning of her third day, that she realized that she actually had no idea how she was supposed to go about training her pokemon. She needed either wild pokemon or trainers to battle against, but she didn't know how to find either. Determined to find a solution, she decided to consult her source of knowledge for all things pokemon related.

She pulled out her phone and dialled Mark's number. Eventually, he picked up.

"Hey, this is Mark."

"Hey Mark, it's Gra-"

"Hah, just kidding! This is actually a pre-recorded message, leave a message after the beep."

Gracie fumed as she listened to his message. He'd had this one for ages and had resisted all attempts to get him to change it.

BEEEEP!

"Hey Mark, it's Gracie. Could you call me back? Also, change your message thingy."

Gracie hung up and sat down to wait; annoying message aside, he was usually pretty good about phoning back promptly.

Sure enough, he phoned back a couple minutes later.

"Hey Grace! You'll never guess where I am now." Paul exclaimed when she picked up the phone.

"Back in Johto...or still at home and trying to mess me up." She replied dryly.

"Hah! The first one. I convinced Grumpy Pants to come with me because staying with Paul would be boring, so he 'ported us back to Dark Cave."

"You can't call him Grumpy Pants, just 'cause he's a grumpig!" Gracie giggled

"Yeah well, anyway, we got out of Dark Cave, and now we're back on track to get to Violet City."

"'We'? Did you find whatisface, Ed, again?"

"Yeah, when you phoned, he was battling some idiot ten year in a miniskirt with a vulpix. She was pretty snobby too. Maybe loosing so badly will take her down a notch or two. Anyway, it's a good thing you have more sense than she did. So, why'd ya phone?"

"I can't find any wild pokemon." She complained

"Oh yeah, there's a knack to that. It's easiest to find an area that's useful to pokemon, like a stream, or food source, or just find some pokemon trails, and then settle in and wait quietly. Sooner or later, something'll show up."

"That's it? I can't get Roran to sniff them out, or something?"

"Who's Roran?"

"Oh, I called my sandshrew 'Roran'."

"Hah, sure...sorta. Assuming that Paul hasn't really taught him anything, he'll quite happily hunt for food, but that's about it. What you should do is, before you all have your big meal for the day, the two of you go hunting together."

"Ew."

"No, no, not like that. Basically what you're doing is teaching him to track down pokemon when told, instead of just whenever he's hungry. On the other hand, if you find a place where you see lots of pokemon traffic, just park your butt there and little Oran will train himself by chasing everything off."

"It's Roran."

"Yeah, whatever. Oh, Ed says that he's gonna send you a pic of a couple pokemon trails so that you know what to look for. They shouldn't be too hard to find. I wouldn't bother waiting around water sources until you get to some drier areas- Oh, a shiny sentret! Ed, I need that for Nikki!" Mark yelled

"Bipolar, use mean look!" She heard Ed yell in the background.

She was beginning to think that she'd been forgotten about.

"Anthony, get the sentret! GETITGETITGETIT!"

Yes, she was listening to a master at work.

"Pokeball, go! Pleasedon'tbreakpleasedon'tbreakpleasedon'tbreak..."

Jeeze, her brother was an idiot.

"YES!" He exclaimed.

"So, I get that it's a shiny, but why bother with a sentret?" She asked

"Because then I can give Nikki a pink furret."

"Oh. So who's Nikki?"

There was a pause before he answered, one that Gracie liked to think was panicky, or even fearful.

"Oh, look at the time, I've got to go. Bye sis, love you."

Gracie sniggered as Mark hung up on her.

She walked back over to her tent to examine it, and found that it was still damp. Well, it looked like she was going to be waiting for wild pokemon to show up, instead of working on Roran's tracking skills.

"Okay guys," she said to her team, "just keep an eye out for any wild pokemon and then we can use them for training!"

Ten minutes later, Rolf was sleeping in the sunshine, Roran was scratching around in the dirt, and Gracie was bored out her mind.

"Is waiting for pokemon always this boring?" She texted to Mark

Congratulations!" He quickly replied, "You have just figured out why so many trainers can knit, sew, write poetry, draw, do weird stuff, and so on and so forth. Do something quiet and still."

'Sarcastic dumbass.' She thought to herself

With a sigh, Gracie pulled her book out of her pile of stuff and plonked back down to read. She read two chapters before a zigzagoon snuffled its way into their clearing, only for Roran to immediately chase it off before she could even put her book down.

"We were gonna fight that!" She complained.

Roran flicked an ear at her, then returned to the dirt, presumably thinking that chasing it off _was_ fighting it.

"Ugh, whatever."

She re-checked the tent and found that it had finally dried. Carefully, she folded it up, then rolled it up with the inner tent and stuffed it, the poles, pegs, and mallet, into the bottom of her bag. They were followed by the rest of her camping gear, then her clothes and the rest of her stuff.

Confident that she'd probably scared off any nearby pokemon, she pulled on her backpack, picked up Rolf, who hadn't moved at all, and led Roran further along into the route.

"So, here's how it's gonna work," Gracie instructed as they walked, "Roran, you need to fight stuff to get stronger, not just chase them off. Rolf also needs to fight, so maybe you could herd some stuff in for him to fight?"

Rolf squeaked in protest in her arms.

"You don't get stronger just by sitting in the sunlight." She told him, "You need to evolve before we challenge the gym in Rustboro and astonish isn't gonna do it. We need absorb and we need it stronger. Really, mega drain would be nice, but then we'd have to put off you evolving, and then..."

Gracie continued strategizing out loud as they walked, not really paying attention to what she was saying. By the time she ran out of things to say, she'd realized that for all that sandshrew was one of her favourite pokemon, and he had a type advantage against a lot of pokemon, he wouldn't learn all that many ground attacks. She'd have to get some TM's when she got some spare cash. If she ever got some spare cash.

Paul had spare cash that he wasn't going to be using anytime soon, he might lend her some. Maybe she should phone him and ask. Maybe she should phone him and just tease him that he was stuck at home.

"Hey, you!" Someone yelled from behind, snapping her out of her musing.

"Hey, me?" She yelled back, just to make sure.

"Er, yeah, you with the sandshrew." A boy about the same age as her walked out from behind a bush.

"And a lotad." He added, as a taillow flew from a tree branch onto his shoulder. "Wanna battle? Three on three?"

"I've only got two..." Gracie mumbled

"Yeah, no worries, two on two, or d'ya wanna one on one?"

"One on one."

It made more sense to her to keep one pokemon in reserve for the rest of the day.

"Awesome! Go-"

The boy's taillow flew from his shoulder to the ground in between them.

"No, Dot, not you! You're already strong enough for here, let Zippy have this one."

With an angry squawk, Dot took off into the bushes, and Gracie was shocked when it got far enough away they could no longer hear its flapping wings.

"Don't worry about her," the boy reassured her, "she'll be back before the battle's even over to see how it went. Go, Zippy!"

He threw a pokeball at the ground, releasing a zigzagoon.

"Roran, you're up." She told him.

Time to see what he could do and how strong he actually was. Yes, he'd taken Rolf down pretty easily, but that didn't necessarily mean much.

"Roran, use, er, sand attack." She hesitantly ordered.

To her surprise, he started flinging sand around, getting it in the zigzagoon's eyes, her eyes, and even the boy's eyes.

"Zippy, growl at it while you're trying to get it out."

Gracie ignored the zigzagoon's growling and desperate pawing at its eyes, while she tried to remember what attack sandshrews learned after sand attack.

"Rapid spin!"

She knew that wasn't it, there was another attack before rapid spin, but hey, maybe he knew it.

Roran, unfortunately, just stood there confused, so apparently not. Zippy, however, took the opportunity to whack him with a tackle, knocking him down and making him roll into a ball.

"Defense curl!" She quickly yelled, mostly to make it look like it was on purpose.

"Oh, poison sting!" She exclaimed, finally remembering.

Before he could even move, Zippy tackled him again, sending him bouncing into some rocks.

Gracie bit her lower lip. She already knew that he could take quite a few hits; the past couple days, he'd hit some rocks while rolling at quite a speed, but he couldn't win a fight just by defending.

"Roran, use scratch on it!" She yelled as he come to a stop, figuring that it was at least an attack that she knew he could use.

Unfortunately, he didn't unroll even an inch, and then got tackled again.

"Yeah, I'm gonna call it." She morosely told the boy.

"You sure? He looks like he could go a while longer." He said with a grin.

Roran got tackled again, this time into a bush.

"Which would be great if he's ever going to uncurl himself." She replied with a scowl.

"Zippy!" The boy called, and his zigzagoon immediately left his onslaught and returned to his side. "Time to go find Dot. Maybe next time you should use attacks that he actually knows." He added before running off back into the trees.

Gracie stood and fumed, until she realised that in his efforts to be a snarky brat, he'd forgotten to take his winnings. She quickly returned both her pokemon and dashed off, as much as she could with her heavy pack, in the opposite direction.

She quickly slowed to a stop and, wheezing for breath, sat down on a fallen log. Awkwardly, she unbuckled her hip and chest straps, then let her pack fall onto the ground with a loud thud. Once she got her breath back enough that she could talk, she let Roran back out.

"Roran, what was that?!" She snapped, "You can't roll into a ball for an entire fight!"

Startled, Roran rolled into a ball.

"Ugh! There you go again! This is great, you're the only one I have who might be strong enough to actually battle, but you won't."

Gracie glared at him as she considered phoning Paul. He hadn't mentioned him refusing to battle, and she would have thought that if he'd known, he would have mentioned it.

She pulled out her phone and dialled.

"Hey Grace, you want me to look something up for ya?" Paul asked when he picked up.

He, and Mark, had both phoned home plenty of times at the beginning of their training to ask for someone to find some information for them on the internet.

"I dunno, maybe?" She whined "Roran won't fight, he just rolls up into a ball the whole time."

"Does he fight weaker pokemon?" He asked.

"I suppose..."

He'd had two fights so far, but he hadn't been afraid of Rolf.

"Well then, he's probably just used to curling up to defend from stronger stuff, and staying that way until whatever's trying to eat him goes away. Wild pokemon can't exactly just nip down to the closest Pokemon Center, you know."

Gracie scowled to herself; she did know that! She wasn't stupid.

"Yeah, but how to I make him stop?"

"I dunno, train him to unroll or something. Oh, I know! Mum's still giving me a hard time about my leg, so how about I come and join up with you for a while? I could ride Minos around and help you out with your sandshrew-"

Gracie hung up on her brother. There was no way she was going to be one of those looser kids that went travelling around with an older relative because they were too pathetic to do it on their own.

She returned Roran to his ball again; she couldn't be bothered to try and figure him out right then. She then let Rolf back out, put her pack back on, and took him to go find some seedot, which were probably the only pokemon that he would be able to beat in a fight.

A lot of people thought that seedot were rare pokemon, but that was only what the locals told the tourists. Seedot were actually fairly common, but they were like lotad and surskit: there were lots of them, but if you didn't get really lucky, and didn't know what you were doing, it was almost impossible to find. For the locals, on the other hand, seedot were one of the easiest pokemon to find.

Gracie had been walking for mere minutes before she found five seedot, all stuck in a row along their branch. The only problem was that they were fifteen feet above the ground, hence why non-local trainers could never find them. They never looked up.

"So, when it uses bide, you use growl, when it doesn't use bide, you hit it with astonish until it starts biding again, got it?" Gracie instructed.

Rolf nodded cheerfully. It was very simple instructions, even if he didn't think that there weren't any pokemon to use them on.

Satisfied, Gracie looked around for a rock to throw, but eventually settled on a stick with a bit of weight to it. She positioned herself where she had a clear view of the seedot, took aim and, with Rolf looking on bemusedly, hurled the stick in the air, knocking down two of the seedot. Quickly, she ran forward and picked them up by their stalk to stop them trying to climb back up another tree. One was in each hand, and she held them far enough away from herself so that they couldn't kick her with their stubby legs. If she forgot and held them a little close, then what did it matter? Their stubby, little legs weren't all that strong.

"Okay, Rolf, first one's up. Hit it with astonish!" She exclaimed, as she tossed one of the seedot towards him.

They spent the rest of the day hunting down seedot, and it took a painfully long time for Rolf to fight each one, especially after he learned absorb and started using it all the time instead of astonish. By the time they headed back to Petalburg City, though, he'd gotten over what Gracie had called his "absorb-hype", and was starting to beat them at a decent speed.

As they approached the city, the sun started getting low enough that it was shining in her eyes again. With a small grin at her packing job that morning, she pulled her sunglasses out of one of her pack's side-pockets and put them on. As far she she was concerned, everything was looking up, right until she got a text from Paul.

"Hey sis I wasnt kidding about mum driving me nuts can I hang out with you for a while."

Not a comma in sight, and that full stop instead of a question mark was an insult to English speaking people everywhere. There was also the subject matter itself. There was no way she was going to be walking around everywhere with her big brother in tow. She especially wasn't going to walk around everywhere with her big brother in tow _while he was riding on his tauros_.

The smug jerk.

Now she needed a Plan B to get rid of him before he just showed up anyway.


	5. Chapter 4

"Sorry, I can't. I'm already travelling with someone." She texted Paul back, using her full range of potential punctuation, including commas and apostrophes. She was also lying through her teeth.

She hadn't had a full conversation with someone since leaving home, never mind found a travel-buddy. It looked like she would have to change that, because even though she was fine with lying in general, she was really bad at specifics. Things like "Who are you travelling with?" or "What pokemon do they have?" would mess her up in a moment. She would probably be able to come up with a name, but that would be her limit.

She closed her phone, put it back in her pocket, and continued into the pokemon center. If he texted her back, then she would be able to honestly say that she hadn't read it until later, by which point she would hopefully have someone to travel with.

She managed to grab the same bed as before, and it looked like the two chatty girls had gotten their same bunks too, she recognized the magazines strewn about. She would really prefer not to have to ask those two if she could join up with them, they'd been way too gossipy for her tastes. A few more beds had stuff piled on them, so at least she had a couple other options.

She put her pack back on her bed, left Rolf to guard it, and left the room again to go find some other people planning on tackling Petalburg Woods. She really hadn't wanted to go anywhere near the woods yet, but if Paul decided to follow her anyway, he would expect her to still be around Petalburg City.

She went to check out how many people were in the cafeteria. She didn't want to butt in on the numerous people eating their dinner, but hoped to talk to some of them as they left. After a few minutes uncomfortably lurking by the door, she noticed a large cork board with "Looking For Group?" emblazoned across the top. Despite being a little too young to really get the reference, she wandered over to have a look.

Strips of peeling duct tape split the board into four sections: East, Petalburg Woods, Dewford Town, and Other. There was a half a dozen names under the Petalburg Woods section, some with phone numbers, but most with room numbers. There was also a pad of paper and a pen, both attached to the board with fraying string. She used the pen to write the names and room numbers on her arm, figuring that losing a piece of paper was easy, but losing your arm was near impossible, and even if she did manage to lose her arm, then she'd have much bigger worries than getting her brother off her back.

Seeing no one about to leave the cafeteria, she left to go and check out the rooms she'd written down.

When she got back to the living quarters, she knocked on room number one, and got no reply. She checked her arm, skipped room three, which had two names, as it was her own, and knocked on room four. The door was unlocked, not even closed properly, and swung open when she touched it. The room was empty, or, empty of humans at least. All the beds had belongings piled on them, and a half a dozen pokemon prowled around the room, but there were't any trainers.

She closed the door again before anything started to think she was a threat, and went to room five. She finally found someone, a girl with short brown hair, lounging on her bed while knitting a sock and using a couple poochyena as pillows.

"Are you..." Gracie paused while she re-checked her arm, "Amanda?"

"It's Amy." The girl corrected, while putting down her knitting and leaning over the edge of her bed. "'Sup?"

"I saw the board saying you were going through Petalburg Woods..." Gracie hesitantly explained.

"Oh yeah," she replied, perking up instantly, "I'm leaving tomorrow morning, though, and I'm not delaying past noon if you need to get anything sorted out. If that works for you, then I'd love to have you. It's a boring trip if you don't have anyone to have a real conversation with."

"Tomorrow's no problem, I kinda just wanna avoid my brother."

"Trouble?" Amy asked, cautiously

"No, nothing like that. He's just embarrassing and wants to get away from our mum. He's got a broken leg and mum likes to freak out about stuff like that."

"How's he supposed to hike around with a broken leg?"

"He rides his tauros."

"Ha! I never got your name."

"Gracie."

"Nice to meet you. These are Tic, Tac, and Toe." She replied, jerking her thumb at the poochyena on her bed. "Tic's got red," she tugged on a red collar, almost hidden in its long, grey fur, "Tac's got the blue, and Toe's-" she looked around, "Toe's got yellow, she's probably under the bed. These three are pretty valuable, so I'd appreciate if you helped keep an eye on them while in the woods. I've also got a linoone and a wailmer with the nurses. What about you?"

"...Just a sandshrew and a lotad." Gracie said, once again feeling that her team wasn't up to par.

"Want to add a poochyena to that? All three of them know thunder fang, and I haven't even gotten them home yet, so I can give you quite a discount."

Gracie quickly shook her head. She still hadn't fully figured out the two she had, and she definitely couldn't afford a specially bred one, even if it was just a poochyena.

"I'm also obligated to give you a business card."

Amy twisted around to awkwardly dig in her pocket and pull out a card, which she give to Gracie. When she looked at it, she saw that the name on it said "Joseph Kleeman", but Joseph had been crossed out with a black pen and "Amanda" was carefully written above it. Below the edited name, "Kleeman Breeding and Training Services" was emblazoned across it, with a phone number and email below that.

"Family business?" Gracie asked

"Yep, and now that I've gotten all the PR out of the way, wanna go get dinner? Or have you already ate?"

"No, I was gonna head down once I found someone to get through the woods with." She replied.

"Well then, lets go."

Amy recalled Tic and Tac, but they had to look underneath three of four the bunks to find, and recall, Toe. On their way past her room, Gracie introduced Amy to Rolf, who didn't really seem to be paying attention to either human, then Amy got her two pokemon back from the nurse, and the pair headed for dinner. Gracie was surprised, and somewhat jealous, that Amy's linoone had no hesitation in gulping down the pokemon center's kibble, though the wailmer stayed in its ball.

It turned out that Amy had gone through Petalburg Woods numerous times, and really only wanted a bit of company. She had just picked up the poochyena from a business partner on Dewford Island, who had bred a mightyena with a manectric and got the three poochyena with thunder fang, and was returning home to Rustboro City. Once home, she planned on either helping her parents out, or making more deliveries, depending on what they needed.

Her older brother ran a stall in the Slateport Market on weekends, and she'd done a lot of trips between Rustboro City and Slateport City, usually through Rustboro Tunnel and Mauville City, but she'd done plenty of trips via Dewford Town, too.

In other words, Amy knew the entire south-west of Hoenn like the back of her hand.

They split back up after dinner, Gracie promising to be up bright and early the next morning.

Before she headed back to her room, she went to the old computer in the lobby. It took a while to load, but eventually she managed to print off a list of attacks for both Roran and Rolf. Hopefully, she wouldn't have another battle like the one earlier, but only if she figured out how to stop Roran from rolling up all the time. With a sigh, she finally went back to her room for the night.

The room was a lot more crowded than when she'd first arrived, by pokemon if not by people. In fact, all the beds now had stuff piled on them, except for the bottom bunk by the door. The two girls from last night were back, a teenager was on a top bunk sketching her wingull, and a torchic, a mudkip, and a treeko wrestled on the floor. Despite all the extra traffic in the room while she was gone, Rolf was still on the window sill as oblivious as ever, but her bag was still untouched, so she supposed she didn't mind.

She climbed onto her bed, careful not to disturb a wurmple guarding the bottom bunk, and pulled her book out again, as it was still too early to go to bed.

Over the next hour, more people trickled into the room, returning to their claimed beds. A group of three girls all arrived at the same time and separated the three official Hoenn starters, easily halving the noise in the room. By the time the lights were turned off, all the beds were full and Gracie had finished her book. The two girls from last night tried to continue gossiping again, but were shot down much quicker and more firmly, by almost everyone else in the room.

Gracie put her book by her pillow, not sure what to do with it because she didn't want to carry around a book she'd finished reading, and recalled Rolf, not wanting another toilet incident. She rolled over and, with minimal tossing and turning, soon fell asleep.

* * *

 _The next morning, a linoone trotted down the hallway with a note held gently in her mouth. She stopped at the door with the number that looked like two round hills tipped on their side, and carefully pawed at the door knob until it turned and the door swung open._

 _Inside, about a dozen girls were in the stages between waking up, and being ready to leave either for breakfast, or for the entire day. She sniffed around until she found the girl from last night, and scurried up the post to her bed. The girl, what was her name? Eh, it didn't really matter, people came and went all the time. The girl was already in her outdoor clothes and was shoving a sleeping bag into a small stuff-sac._

 _She barked at the girl to get her attention, then spat out the note onto her lap._

 _Job done, the linoone jumped down to the floor and trotted back out the door and went to find her trainer._

* * *

Gracie blinked at the damp note in her lap in surprise. It wasn't that getting a note delivered by a linoone, longer than she was tall, was completely unexpected...well, maybe it was.

Snorting quietly in amusement, she unfolded the piece of paper and read the note.

"I'm heading down for breakfast, see you when you appear." It said, "P.S. Sorry about any drool."

She quickly got dressed, shoved her sleeping bag into her sleeping bag bag, tied that onto the top of her pack, and climbed down from her bed. Below her, a girl was trying to unstick a cascoon from the bedpost, perhaps it was the same wurmple from last night? She seemed pretty cheesed off, though, so Gracie left her to her unsticking and carried her pack to the cafeteria, casually looking for Amy as she went.

In the hallway outside the cafeteria, there were two long rows of packs, one along each wall, none of which had pokemon guarding them. With a shrug, she added her pack to the end of one line and headed in.

Today, the breakfast buffet comprised of a half a dozen boxes of rice crispies, and a single, half empty jug of milk. Slightly shocked at today's breakfast compared to yesterday's, she filled up a bowl and looked around the cafeteria for Amy. In the end, she found her linoone before she found Amy herself. Then, careful not to spill her breakfast, she wove in between the tables, other trainers, and pokemon, to sit down next to her travelling partner.

"Morning." Gracie greeted her.

"M'n'ng." Amy replied through a mouthful of cereal before swallowing, "You might want to eat that before it turns to mush."

Gracie sat down and started shovelling her own cereal into her mouth, only to start eating it faster when Amy's linoone started sniffing it.

"Hey!" Amy poked her linoone in the face with her spoon, "No begging at the table."

The linoone sulkily returned to her kibble.

"It's alright..." Gracie mumbled.

"No it isn't." Amy replied. "Look, a bit of advice? Very quickly, your pokemon are going to be faster, stronger, and possibly bigger and smarter than you. If you don't teach them little things like manners straight away, and constantly enforce them, then they won't listen to big things later on. Worst case scenario, one of them could attack you and land you in hospital."

Gracie looked at her, horrified.

"It happens a lot more than you think." Amy told her. "Do you remember a few years back when that dragonite killed all those people?"

Gracie nodded. She didn't remember the details very well, but her school had raised some money for the families of the victims.

"My uncle is the one who sold the dratini to the banker, and he says it was the sweetest pokemon he'd ever raised when he sold it. After twenty years of being allowed to get away with everything and anything, that's what you get. It's an extreme case, and I've never heard of anything like that happening to a trainer, as opposed to a pet owner, but it's something to keep in mind."

Gracie just nodded mutely. If she'd expected to be lectured over breakfast, she would have expected it to be over her putting her elbows on the table, or eating with her mouth open, not being killed by your own pokemon through a lack of discipline.

They sat in silence as they finished their meal.

Fortunately, once they finished up and got outside, they managed to overcome the awkwardness of breakfast and strike up a more cheerful conversation about, out of all the available topics, gardening for flowers verses gardening for berries. Rolf, who was riding on Gracie's pack, and Amy's linoone, whom she'd finally learned was called Tassie, kept interjecting with their own opinions, of which Amy only understood a few, and Gracie understood none at all.

When they entered Route 104, it looked to be the perfect place for a day out. A long stretch of white sand glistened in the morning sun, and the ocean was blindingly bright. They didn't go down to the water's edge, though, instead following a wide, dirt path above the beach. It was a less picturesque route, but a much more direct one.

Petalburg Woods was a lot gloomier than Gracie had expected. Very little sunlight made it down to the forest floor, and most of it was overgrown with saplings and bushes fighting for whatever shred of sunlight that they could get. On the other hand, all the larger trees were covered in moss, making them look softer, and more alive.

That said, she had no desire to spend the night there, not that they had a choice. It usually took three or four days to get through to Rustboro City, if you didn't get lost. Fortunately, with Amy there, they should get through pretty quickly.

They had been under the shade of the trees for barely ten minutes before she noticed the change in temperature. Her tank top had been fine for walking by the beach in Route 103, but her shoulders were already feeling the chill. She'd change it when she stopped for lunch if she was still feeling chilly, she decided, though chances are, she'd warm up as she walked.

Rolf started chattering angrily at her from his spot on her pack, bringing her out of her musings.

"What's wrong?" She asked him, only to get chattered at more in reply.

"Are you cold? Are you afraid of stuff hiding in the trees?"

Actually, now that she'd said that, she started feeling nervous about any unseen pokemon hiding in the shadows.

"Loootaaa!"

Somewhat amused, she picked him up from where he was leaning over her shoulder to try and get a better idea of what he wanted.

"Lota!" He repeated while pointedly looking upwards.

She followed his gaze, but all she could see were the leaves and branches above them.

"Is there something up there?" She asked

He shook his head in reply.

"So there's just the leaves?"

"Taa."

"You're upset about the leaves?"

"TAAA!"

"Why? All they do is block out the sunlight."

"TAA!" He repeated

It took a moment to remember what the receptionist at the pokemon center had told her.

"Oh yeah, you eat sunlight."

"Tad."

She really had no idea how a pokemon was supposed to eat sunlight, but then again, she was pretty sure that plants did the same thing, and she didn't really know how they did it either.

With a sigh, she returned him to his pokeball.

"There's a few open patches we can camp in at night." Amy told her, "It'll take us a bit longer to get through, but he'll have less ball time."

"Aren't you on a schedule?" She asked, remembering Amy's no-leaving-past-noon rule.

"I need to be home, um... I've still got a week." Amy replied, after mentally counting how many days she'd been gone so far. "We made really good time getting swimming back from Dewford Town."

"Then why the early start?"

"Because there's hardly any point in starting to go somewhere after noon."

"I left home half way through the afternoon." Gracie told her.

"Why?!"

Gracie explained to Amy her family tradition of catching starters, as well as the delays in getting her own, who quickly started giggling.

"So, are you going to do the same to your sister?" She asked

"Heck yes, I am!" Gracie replied, getting Amy to laugh outright.

"Any idea what you're going to get her?" Amy asked when she calmed down.

"Nope, but I've got almost an entire year to figure it out."

"Why don't you catch it beforehand, then go and relax somewhere for a week or so to create the delay? That would be way less stressful."

"Obviously, because I hadn't thought of that."

Amy started laughing again, and Gracie soon joined in.

"So hey, am I going to meet your sandshrew now?"

Gracie gulped, her humour replaced with guilt. Last time she'd let Roran out of his ball was during that battle yesterday, right before she'd yelled at him for something that wasn't really his fault.


End file.
